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Three snapshots of mania1. TraumaI collect my children from nursery. I'm a bit high. The little monsters are tired and grumpy. My stress level escalates as I prepare their tea. They won't stop crying. Suddenly I go into psychosis. I am a young women wearing a dress. I have long brown hair and bear feet. There is a wind blowing round and round inside my head. I am about to unleash the full force of my hatred. I break the loop by going to get a neighbour's help. My children are safe. 2. EscapeWhen I'm high it is like I am the character in the film the Trueman Show. If I just try hard enough then I will break free of the bubble. I rush faster and faster in my attempt to escape. I can see the blue sky. No need to sleep or eat. This time I will make it. The rush is intoxicating. Kind of like that bit at the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Or Steve Mcween in The Great Escape. 3. The God ThingI was getting ill when I happened to see Mike Figgis do a live mix of his film Timecode at the Ritzy. The screen is split into four; four overlapping films run concurrently. Figgis has captured the nature of reality. Some days later it all boiled over and I ended up in hospital. I thought that Figgis was god. We are all in his movie. I kept shouting 'Over here Mike Figgis' and doing things to get the camera's attention:- Dropping my trousers. Feeling a policeman's bottom. Shaking a tamborine and singing Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. Life storyMy life has its share of good stuff. I played clarinet in the National Youth Wind Orchestra. I studied physics and philosophy at Oxford University. I flew in the British hang-gliding B team in the pre world championships. I have always had good friends. Best of all, I have two wonderful children. But there is another side to the story... From an early age I used sexual acting out to medicate my feelings of shame and anxiety. At school I had to be in the lime light. I loved music, science, art, maths. When I went to university I believed that my work had to be perfect. I would stay up night after night trying to write the perfect essay on Wittgenstein. Nothing I did was good enough. I sunk into depression and my sex addiction became chronic. I isolated, dropped out of university and became suicidal. From the moment I left home I began a string of codependent abusive relationships with women. I felt powerless over this and many other destructive patterns. I tried to escape my trauma by being extraordinary. I was either depressed, high on sex and drugs or on a mission to be the best in the world in whatever was my current obsession. In September 2002 my relationship with the mother of my children broke down. This triggered my first episode of mania. I ended up in the Maudsley where I was diagnosed as bipolar (manic depressive) and told to take lithium. I guess I am banging the RD Laing drum but I was amazed that the contents of my mania were completely ignored. At the same time, thanks to my therapist's suggestion, I began going to sex addicts annonymous. Here for the first time my sexual history began to make sense. I got a sponsor and began to work the program a day at a time. Reading listI have read a lot of books on this stuff. These are the ones that have really helped me.
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The drugs don't workI am an addict. Due to my using I am out of touch with reality and myself. I oscillate between extremes. Grandiosity/depression, dr jekyl/mr hide, build/destroy. My recovery is coming from working a spiritual program - the 12 steps. I will use whatever works to get well. I listen to the flapping white coats and I keep on taking the tablets. But my bipolar seems to be drug resistant. I don't want to polarize and say 12 step good, drugs bad. But so far the medical model has not been very helpful for me. A CBT tip - catch the mood swings early and intervene. Flight from realityMental illness is the mind's response to trauma. The mind dissociates or splits. Reality is denied. A false self emerges. The mind stops engaging with the complexity of real life. A bubble or fantasy world is created. This is defended at all costs. Meanwhile the trauma gets acted out in a mechanical pattern. Two approaches to mania/psychosisI had two episodes of mania in 2003. During the first episode after three days in an NHS hospital I was spirited away by my friends. They drove me to Harmony, a 12 step treatment center in Devon. Here I had an amazing healing experience. During the second and milder episode I remained in the hands of the NHS. I was treated with anti-psychotic drugs to the point where I could hardly move and emerged from hospital ten days later with an even more traumatised and damaged mind. (The up side of the later experience is I will now go to any lengths to avoid another hospital addmission.) My DIY program of recovery12 step, buddhism, gong-fu, meditation, yoga, running, flying, creative writing, therapy (core process, gestalt, transactional analysis, person centered)... shame reduction, trauma reduction, getting back into my body, creating a manageable lifestyle... grounding myself in reality: family, career, friends... Be faithfulBe faithful, all suffering will be but a trifle. After the rain blessings flower, all storms pass over. - Bach The 3 h'sI try and approach projects with a different attitude these days. Rather than me, me, me I now think in terms of service. Here are my 3 h's...
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If I had to say something positive about my dual diagnosis I'd say this - it has forced me to go more deeply into my experience.
